Boards and Academic Bill of Rights

Wow - did you see what happened at the College of DuPage - a community college? Their Board of Trustees voted to basically take control of most decision-making at the school from curriculum, role of the student news paper and the selection of outside speakers. Apparently the College has been going through quite a bit of turmoil and this may be the icing on the cake. Have seen a couple of references to David Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights.." will have to google it to see what it's all about.

organizational problem/ organizational perspective

Nancy and I talked about this a little in class last week, but I was curious about other thoughts. We found it interesting that some problems fit better in different perspectives. For example, my undocumented immigrant problem fits better in the cultural, human resource or even the gender, class etc. perspective, at least in my opinion.

Professors and Blogs

So, here's an interesting issue - suppose a professor tells the class that if they are caught cheating, they will fail his/her class and they will be publicly "flogged..." Now, fast forward, some students are caught plagarizing and they are given F's and their names are published on the professor's blog. Should the professor be fired for this? Have the students been afforded due-process? What about academic freedom for the professor? A lot of overlapping issues here. Reminds of when I lived in Richmond, VA, the newspaper used to publish the names of individuals who were caught soliciting prostitutes. Somehow, the paper got away with it and it was available to a much broader community. Story is in today's Inside Higher Ed issue = front page.

R U a Freudian, Marxist, Darwinian, Herderite or Madisonian?!

This article hit home for me, especially in the realm of my situational "problem" I have been analyzing for class. Depending on the day and the cast of characters - I could be labeled any of these types!!! I never heard of Johann von Herder (sounds like a Monty Python character) but I related more to his philosophy.

themes

Did anyone else have trouble writing about the "themes" for this last paper? I could pick out a few themes, but wasn't sure how they were supposed to be written. How did you all do it?

Gender Assumptions

Sorry I didn't make it to class, but who could pass up being part of such an historic election! Anyway, I would appreciate any guidance anybody can give me regarding last nights discussion and the assumption we are to use putting together our next paper. My thanks in advance!

another technology article

This article "Clicker U." in the Nov. 3rd edition of Inside Education caught my attention because it was mentioned in an assessment class I took last semester. Basically it's about clickers (kind of like remote controls) used in classrooms. There are different uses, but the main one is to so the instructor can assess whether the students are understanding what is being taught. The instructor asks a questions and the students click their remote in answer to the question. The results are instantly available to the instructor. Then if students aren't understanding the lecture the instructor can go back and talk about it again. Talk about getting instant feedback from the environment that can be turned around and made into an output.

Taking Facebook Back to Campus

This article “Taking Facebook Back to Campus” in the Oct. 24th edition of Inside Education reminded me of the unclear technology assumption of the learning organization perspective. With all the technology out there it’s hard to keep track of it all. This article talks about universities using Facebook to attract new students and keep track of alumni. I think it is great to use all the new thing that are out there, but it sure adds to the chaos of a learning organization. Not only do students learn in different ways making different technology difficult for students to use, but also students have different levels of experience with the new technology. Older students, international students or low income students may not have access to the new technology.

This could also be seen from the human resource perspective as having a focus on people and making decisions to use the new technology to meet the needs of the students. Students are already using this new technology, so universities are adjusting to the times and using the technology to attract new students.